7 6 Oliver . — (9/2 Structure, Development, 
the autumn of 1887 a sufficient supply of spirit-material of 
this plant arrived from China. 
This was handed to me for more complete and detailed 
investigation ; and in the present paper are given the results 
of my research, carried out during the past winter. 
That I am able now to give this monographic account of a 
plant unknown to science before 1887, speaks to Dr. Henry’s 
prompt courtesy in obtaining and dispatching material. No 
Botanist in China of recent times has sent home collections 
richer in entirely new forms than has Dr. Henry, who is now 
working at the flora of central China, hitherto an almost 
sealed book. 
Trapella (for general view of the plant, see PL V. Fig. 1) is 
an aquatic Phanerogam with long straggling and simple or 
sparingly branched stems, which ascend obliquely through 
and float at the surface of the water. At intervals of from 
40-50 mm. opposite leaves are borne, deltoid-rotundate, and 
without stipules. Their petioles always twist so that the 
lamina of the leaf is parallel to the surface of the water. 
The lower, submerged leaves differ from the floating ones ; 
they are oblong. The internodes in this region also are much 
longer than in the upper part of the stem. The lower 
ends of these shoots would appear to arise from a 
system of horizontal thread-like rhizomes which grow at 
the surface of the mud and give off several such ascending 
branches. Many adventitious roots arise from the nodes of 
these submerged parts, and sometimes even from the inter- 
nodal regions. In this way the plant is anchored to the 
bottom (Fig. 2). 
In the axils of the floating leaves, and of the submerged 
ones for some distance below the surface, flowers are formed, 
which in the former case open just above the surface, but 
in the latter are cleistogamic. Generally speaking, flowers 
are not produced in both the leaf-axils at one node, though 
in some cases this is so, and both may develop into fruits 
(V. Fig. 1). Ramification of the ascending axes is not fre- 
quent ; when it occurs it is from the axil of a submerged 
